Malang buat keluarga dari Australia ini, kedua-dua tragedi yang melanda Syarikat Penerbangan Malaysia (MAS) melibatkan empat ahli keluarganya..
Kehilangan MH370 menyebabkan dua ahli keluarganya turut hilang bersama penerbangan itu dan dua lagi ahli keluarganya pula turut terkorban dalam nahas yang melibatkan penerbangan MH17.
Abang kepada Kaylene Mann iaitu Rod Burrows dan kakak iparnya, Mary Burrow merupakan antara penumpang pesawat Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 yang dilaporkan hilang pada Mac lalu.
Namun, hari ini, wanita itu mendapat tahu anak perempuan tirinya, Maree Rizk dan suaminya Albert, pula merupakan antara 298 penumpang yang terbunuh dalam nahas pesawat MAS MH17 yang ditembak jatuh di Ukraine, semalam.
Rizk dan Albert dalam perjalanan pulang setelah bercuti di Eropah bila kapal terbang yang mereka naiki itu ditembak..
"Pesawat itu membawa semua orang pergi selama-lamanya dan kejadian ini telah merentap hati kami sekali lagi, kata abang kepada Mann, Greg Burrows.
Walaupun terpaksa berdepan dengan dua tragedi dalam masa terdekat, Burrow berkata, beliau tidak menyimpan dendam terhadap MAS.
"Tiada siapa boleh meramalkan pesawat itu akan ditembak jatuh. Perkara itu di luar kawalan kita," ujarnya.
Family who lost two members on flight MH370 have lost two more on MH17
An Australian family has been hit by both Malaysia Airlines tragedies, having now lost four members in flight MH370's disappearance and flight MH17's shooting down over Ukraine.
Kaylene Mann's brother Rod Burrows and sister-in-law Mary Burrows were on board Flight 370 when it vanished in March.
And on Friday, Mann found out that her stepdaughter, Maree Rizk, was killed along with 298 others on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Rizk and her husband Albert were travelling home from a holiday in Europe when the plane was shot down.
“It's just brought everyone, everything back,” said Greg Burrows, brother to Kaylene and Rodney. “It's just ... ripped our guts again.”
He said his family was struggling to understand how they could be struck by such horrible luck on two separate occasions with the same airline.
“She just lost a brother and now a stepdaughter, so...” he said of his sister, his voice trailing off.
Rizk and her husband Albert, of Melbourne, were returning home from a four-week holiday in Europe, said Phil Lithgow, president of the Sunbury Football Club, with which the family was heavily involved.
Albert, a real estate agent, was a member of the club's committee, Maree was a volunteer in the canteen and their son, James, plays on the club's team.
“They were very lovely people,” Lithgow said. “You wouldn't hear a bad word about them — very generous with their time in the community, very community-minded, and just really very entertaining people to be with.”
A recording of conversations between a man identified by Ukrainian media as a Russian military commander and a rebel fighter has emerged this morning, in which they are reportedly heard discussing the downing of a jet over eastern Ukraine shortly after MH17 fell in between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk.
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